Unexpected Encounters
by ivemademychoice
Summary: Jack and the team in Cardiff are monitoring rift spikes, when an unusually large spike is monitored. None of the team are prepared for what they are about to find, least of all Jack.
1. Chapter 1

The sound of the rift alarm filled the empty space of the Hub, where Captain Jack Harkness had been lying awake, always on alert because saving the Earth wasn't a 9-5 job. Cardiff was like the Las Vegas or New York of Wales, the city that never slept. Instead of gambling and rock 'n' roll, it was aliens causing mayhem. The city never rested, and the immortal had soon learnt how to live a life on less sleep, more coffee, and the regular scotch.

The bellowing alarms caused him to jump out of his bed, it wasn't much to look at, just a simple bed in the corner of his office. He didn't need to get an apartment, although he may be stuck in Cardiff, he didn't know how long that would last. He just knew it was his only chance of seeing The Doctor again. 100 years in and he was still waiting for that magic day to happen, but it would, one day or another, he would finally find that Timelord and get the answers he needed. Sometimes he questioned whether he would hit him, or kiss him, depending on his mood that day.

His feet jumped in to action as he monitored the computers, cocking an eyebrow in surprise. This was a huge spike, something they hadn't seen in a long time. No wonder the alarms were going crazy. Lately it had been the occasional spike, odd things coming through the rift, like weavels and what not, but the readings hadn't gone this crazy in a long time. Whatever this was, it wasn't good. Hacking in to the CCTV cameras, his fingers dancing away on the keys, wanting to get an idea of the magnitude before he got the SUV ready. And before he woke up some grumpy team members, they never did appreciate being woken up at all hours.

Staring at the CCTV to check what, or who had some through the rift, that was when he noticed something. _Someone_ , who was clearly trying to walk away from the wreckage and keep going. They were determined, he had to give them that. But it was clear they had given up, a small figure was lying on the ground. They seemed to be unconscious and injured, paging Owen to make sure they had a medic on site ASAP. Torchwood always had to make sure they got there before the police, otherwise more issues and questions began to arise, and he couldn't deal with that right now. Why bother them with the paperwork? The dim lighting of the street lights made it near impossible to tell who this individual was, Jack squinting his eyes to try and get a good glimpse. They definitely looked human, but Jack knew better than most that didn't always mean they were human. Aliens were intelligent, they knew how to disguise themselves, whether it was through a perception filter or through masks and what not. Never go in assuming it's just a simple pink and yellow human.

Jack was armed and ready, Owen promising to meet him on site, albeit it was already grumbling about having to be woken up. But that was what he got when he was the only trained medic on the team. That and Jack knew he didn't exactly have a social life, no one did to be honest. That was something he hated, not for himself but for the others. They had one day been living their own lives and going out as and when they wanted, until Torchwood. Now they were practically bound to the job without any chance of a social life. They rarely had holidays or time away without being bothered. Almost like a prison sentence, most of them had done bad things in their past, but who hadn't? They were paying back in to society without anyone even noticing. The thankless heroes.

Jack grabbed his keys and gun, always be prepared, the 51st century he was taught that. The scouts honour. And the time agent honour for that matter, but that was always be prepared, mainly to ensure that they weren't caught out on a mission. His mind wandered as the SUV delved in to the Cardiff night life, party goers having fun without a care in the world. He did miss those days, it had been a long time since he had done that. A lifetime ago. He had lost too many people in his lifetime, meaning he had held back from having fun, from engaging with people. Maybe one day that would all change, but not any time soon.

The sparkling lights of the city faded in to the distance after picking up Owen, who of course was grumbling the entire way and insisted this better be worth being woken up for. Jack simply rolled his eyes and told him to shut up. It was easier to just be blunt with someone like Owen rather than beating around the bush. Jack learnt that fairly early on. As they got closer to the rift site, the navigation alerted them of any life signs, thankfully for now it was just the one. And they were alive, and alone. It had been 45 minutes since the spike and nothing else seemed to be coming through.

They cautiously approached the individual, Jack always had his gun on hand just in case. Aliens may seem harmless, and even humans for that matter, but their behaviour was always unpredictable. They might be hurt, they'll be scared and alone, and who knew what kind of training they had. One wrong move and things could go from beautifully calm and collected, to vicious and violent in a matter of seconds.

"Hello?" Jack called out as Owen got the kit ready for any potential injuries. The closer he got, the more he could feel his heart pounding beneath his chest. The slim build of the individual, they definitely looked female, the attire seemed to be from Earth. Simple jeans, plain top with a jacket. The blonde hair, he swore he knew that blonde hair from somewhere but his mind refused to let him go there.

She was gone, he knew that. But his heart always hoped that one day he would find it had all been some sort of misunderstanding. The Doctor's life never made much sense and neither did his companions. All these years later her face was still in his dreams. He shook those thoughts out, he couldn't get clouded by his past. That was something he had learnt to control over these few years, the past was something he couldn't change, even if he wanted to. What was done was done, he had to focus on the present. He could hear a faint groan as the woman tried to move, noticing there was shrapnel scattered around her.

What had happened to her? This was some sort of explosion, being even more conscious and aware that there was no other firearms or potential bombs surrounding them.

"Owen! Scan the area for any explosives!" Jack ordered as he knelt down, feeling his hand shaking. Why was he shaking? Noticing a chain with the last piece of debris clinging on to it for dear life. Some sort of transportation device, he had seen enough in his time to know what they looked like. But this was different, he had never seen anything like it, glancing down to his own broken vortex manipulator.

He lightly began to brush the blood matted hair from the woman's face, feeling his heart skipping a beat as he revealed who it was. He was going mad, he had lost the plot. He had to have done, she was dead. Not right now, but she was supposed to be. He had read her name just a couple of years ago.

 _Rose Tyler, Battle of Canary Wharf_

She was on that list, yet here she was. It all felt like an illusion, this was some sort of twisted game. They must have known, they must be playing a trick on him.

"Rose?" He whispered, feeling her hand moving to meet his, though her eyes didn't open. She was injured, whatever she had done, whatever mess she had gotten herself in to, it had backfired. **_Literally_**. She had been in the midst of an explosion, whatever transportation device she had been using didn't have a shield. "Rose….what have you done?" He whispered, praying for her to open her eyes. Just something to confirm he wasn't going insane. Shaking his head as Owen appeared.

"Who is she then?" Owen asked formally and got everything ready, his medical kit dumped on the floor.

"Be careful." Jack warned him, his voice laced with sincerity and authority. "Be careful with her, you are going to save her. You hear me?" Jack insisted, it wasn't a question, he wasn't asking if she could be saved. This was an order. Jack Harkness had to see Rose Tyler live. For his own mental state and hers of course. He wanted answers, and as selfish as that was, he needed Rose Tyler for most of them. Seeing her pop up in to his life once again had only increased his curiosity and urge to find out what The Doctor had done.

"This is Rose Tyler, and Owen, if you do anything in your damn life, you'll save her. Because she — oh she is important."

 **A/N: This is my first fanfiction in a long time. Please leave a review and let me know what you think.**

 **It would be greatly appreciated! A x**


	2. Chapter 2

Jack was still trying to wrap his head around everything that was going on, his brain felt as though it was looking down on the situation rather than being in the midst of it. She was here, she looked different and injured but it was still her. Rose Tyler, against all odds. Not that he knew how or why she was here. Everything was in slow motion as Owen rushed to monitor the bleeding and apply pressure where needed.

"Jack!" Owen snapped, jumping him out of his deepest thoughts, he had been trying to get his attention for a while, but his boss was merely staring at the woman in complete amazement. Like he had seen a ghost. Who was this girl? Jack never showed emotion like this, the distress in his eyes, the panicked and choked tone in his voice. This was a man unrecognisable to the Torchwood team. And of course Owen wasn't the best person at dealing with emotion so he kept doing what needed to be done.

"Get to her the Hub, right now!" Jack demanded and smothered her hair softly, his heart thumping beneath his chest, making him feel more alive than ever. He could feel the adrenaline and fear running through him as his past had caught up with him. Fear was something Jack didn't feel any more, but oh he felt it right now. The fear that this was all going to be ripped away from him before it could truly happen.

He raced in to the SUV and whirled through the glistening lights of Cardiff, moving away from the quiet outskirts of the city and in to the buzzing arena of people, getting them towards the Hub as quickly as possible. His eyes flickered back to Rose every few seconds, he was on edge, his hands tightening around the steering wheel every time his emotions tried to get the best of him. That wasn't going to happen, he had over a hundred years without her, but it still hurt. Seeing her name listed as dead only a couple of years ago, it was still something he had grieved despite all the time that had passed without seeing her. Now he feared he was going to have to endure that pain once again.

"How's she doing, Owen?" Jack questioned as his employee looked at him with a worried expression. Mainly because he didn't want to get a bollocking from his boss if this went wrong. Owen didn't want to be at the hands of Jack again, he had made that mistake a few too many times.

"Pulse is threading slightly, once I get the bleeding under control I can get a better idea of how she's doing." He explained, normally he was quick to ask questions, wondering why he was letting a stranger in to the Hub. Sure, she was injured, but being in the Hub usually meant something was a risk. But this was different, the team rarely got to see a protective side to Jack.

They entered through the secret door in the Hub to save them from trying to move Rose too much, finding the rest of the team waiting for them. They had clearly seen the alert and rushed in, but this was the last thing Jack needed right now. He didn't need people surround him.

"What the hell happened? Who is she?" Gwen and Tosh asked, Ianto keeping his distance just in case. Jack couldn't take all of these questions, ordering Owen to get Rose to the medway straight away. They didn't have any time to waste, and selfishly Jack just wanted answers. He wanted to see her eyes open and to hear her voice again. That old smile, God he loved her smile. It could brighten the glummest of days and the darkest of hearts.

"No questions. All of you go home." He ordered, his voice firm but appreciative of them being here. "Go home, all of you." He insisted and gave Ianto a small nod, Gwen on the other hand was slightly more stubborn than the others. "That's an order Gwen, go home. You'll have answers when I have them, or when i'm ready to give them to you. All I need right now is Owen."

Reluctantly, the welsh woman backed off, glancing behind her to try and get a glimpse of what was going on, Owen busy stabilising Rose's injuries and working on the open wounds. He leant against the railings, watching Owen working, his eyes focussed on Rose, now she was in such harsh lighting it made hi realise how hurt she really was. How much she had changed, of course she still looked young, as though she hadn't even aged a day, but it was clear that it had been a while. Her hair was shorted, the colour a subtler blonde and tied into a ponytail. She was bruised and pale, Owen glancing up to face his boss. It had taken him a little while, she was exposed with shrapnel and lacerations, but he had done his best to make sure there was no other debris harming her.

"I've stitched everything I can see, no open wounds, full body scan shows she's got no internal injuries. She's bloody lucky." He commented and looked down at her, searching for any clues to how she knew Jack.

"You can go, Owen." Jack insisted, his tone calm and soft, he only wanted people here that were needed. There was more rift activity then he would deal with it, he would call one of the team members and do what was needed. But right now, all he wanted to do was stay with her. To watch her, make sure she was breathing and she wasn't going to magically disappear before his eyes.

"I know you're not gonna bloody tell me — but who is she?" Owen asked, Jack seemed to love her. Owen wasn't completely sure Jack could love, of course he cared for everyone that worked here, but love? He had lived so long, and he was so isolated that he never seemed to have a relationship. Not a proper one at least.

"A friend. An old friend." Jack said and placed a hand on Owen's shoulder for a minute before pulling up a seat next to Rose, he would put her somewhere more comfortable soon. Make sure she didn't wake up in a clinical lab. Owen sulked off before he out his foot in it or pushed his luck. He knew his boundaries and it wasn't worth asking any more questions. Jack would call when he needed them, or if not, they would just keep asking when they arrived in to work the next morning.

A deep breath escaped Rose, gently carrying her upstairs to his office where he had a bad, making sure she was as comfortable as possible. He pulled up a chair by her bedside, stroking a stray piece of hair from her face.

"What the hell happened to you, Rosie?" He smiled to himself, an old nickname that she absolutely hated. But deep down he knew she liked it, he always gave his wining smile alongside the name so she couldn't be angry at him. "Where the hell is the Doctor? Where did you go?" He whispered, closing his eyes as he sat by her side.

It was a few hours later when he jumped awake, feeling the faint touch of Rose's hand moving in his. She was waking up, and as much as Jack wanted to bombard her, he knew he had to hold back. He had to let her adjust.

"Rose?" He whispered, letting her take her time to wake up, her eyes squinting as she tried to adjust to the light. She looked panicked to start with as her mind whirled to figure out where she was, panicking that she was back in her own Torchwood. That it had been another failed mission. But then she heard his voice, she registered that voice. She knew it anywhere, and for a moment she was convinced this was a dream. It had to be, that was the only time she ever heard him. Dreaming about their travels together, the memories they shared. That was where her happiness.

Jack noticed as she started to shake her head in pure disbelief, she was panicking. Panicking that all of this was some surreal nightmare, it couldn't possibly be real. "Shh, shh, calm down." He whispered softly and cupped her cheek gently. "You're okay, you're okay. It's me. Remember me?" He smiled, but she still shook her head. "It's Jack. You know me. You know who I am, the blitz. Remember that? We danced and drank champagne. And flirted of course."

Rose was dubious, her eyes scanning him to check for any details that wouldn't match. Her dreams were always exact to her memories. But this was different, an environment she had never seen, his clothes were different, the same but different.

"This is a dream?" She croaked, it had to be, but none of it made any sense. He was comforting her. He was being kind, he was helping, this seemed to be his own environment. "Did it — did it work? But where?" Rose did her best to sit up, Jack placing a hand against her to stop her from doing herself more damage.

"Deep breath." Jack reminded her, making sure she didn't do anything sudden that could cause her further injuries. "First of all, you have to tell me what the hell happened. Not that I'm not pleased to see you."

"Dimension canon." She whispered weakly, shaking her head in disbelief, she didn't know what she was doing here. Last time there had been a purpose. This time — this time it was just for herself. To give herself one more shot, to escape the memories that haunted her. But part of her had realised now that memories were always going to be there.

"The Doctor ruined my life. That's what happened."


	3. Chapter 3

**"The Doctor ruined my life. That's what happened."**

Jack let the words sink in, shaking his head in disbelief. This didn't sound like Rose, not the Rose Tyler he knew. The Doctor had shown her the stars and the universe, her face beamed every time they went on their travels.

What had happened?

"Rose — you're not making any sense." He insisted, letting her slowly sit up, he wasn't going to let her out of his sight. Not now, not until he at least had a full sense of what was going on, and until he knew for sure that she was okay. Something traumatic had happened and he needed to know what it was.

"He ruined my life." She broke out in a sob, trying to hold herself together. For so long she had been trying togged back to this Universe. She had no real goal, not this time at least. She had lost everything, the man she loved, again. And her family, she didn't know what her aim was but she had to get out of that Universe. She had to find something new, even if it wasn't on Earth.

But of course fate had brought her to Torchwood. The universe's way of insisting that this was where she belonged, Pete's World or not, defending the Earth was all she was meant to do.

Just like Jack.

"I feel in love with him, we wanted a life together and then he —" Rose shook her head, a half timecard, half human metacrisis was never supposed to survive. He didn't have a hope. And he knew that, they lived in denial for a few years, but eventually it came to the stage they had to accept that they couldn't live forever.

That and Bad Wolf.

She knew what she had done to Jack, one day she found herself joking with her husband that she never aged. Until that small thought began eating away at the back of his mind, running tests and labs, only to find it wasn't some big joke. It was true. She had a mutation in her DNA, something he hadn't seen before. Of course they couldn't be conclusive with what was wrong with her. She didn't exactly want to die to find out if she was just like Jack, or if her ageing process was simply slower to most humans.

Who would have thought saving the world would have come with so many consequences?

That was when her Doctor, John Smith as he was known, began working on another dimension canon. A project for himself to focus on, giving him hope that one day if he were gone, she could get back. If Jackie was gone, her whole family had grown old and died, then she could at least get away from those memories.

After all, he was the Doctor, and the one thing he was good at was running.

And Rose had done just the same.

As Rose did her best to explain all of this to Jack, she could feel herself getting more and more worked up. Anger bubbling inside her, anger at the Doctor for leaving her on Bad Wolf Bay all those years ago, anger at her husband for dying. Not that it was his fault, they had lived a happy life and in the end it wasn't old age or illness that killed him. It was noble acts of trying to save her and everyone else.

It was always bound to end that way.

"Rose…" Jack whispered and wrapped an arm around her, it had been so long since someone cared for her, since they told her everything would be okay. She had worked secretly on the dimension canon, finishing what the Doctor never had time to finish. He had done the main part, she used the blueprints from the previous models to fix the final parts together. Clearly she had pieced it together wrong, wincing as she tried to move her head, feeling the scrapes across her body.

"He just — he ruined everything. He couldn't have just — have let me travel with him again. He had to make me fall in love all over again, to get married, to think about a family." She choked, she had barely seen anyone for months, leaving a small note as she left and flittering off without another word. Human contact was something she hadn't realised that she had missed until it there. And an old friend at that, someone she adored and showed her so much during her times with the Doctor.

"Are you — are you for him?" Jack asked cautiously, giving everything that Rose had just told him, he wanted to be careful. He didn't want to upset her even further.

She shook her head.

"No — I don't know. Maybe deep down I am. Longing and hoping to see him. Even just to slap him." She sighed, Jack beginning to pour them a drink. The amount of information she had thrown at him was enough to give anyone a headache.

"But Rose…" He swayed his head, one eyebrow cocked as he looked at her disbelieving. She was Rose Tyler, she loved the Doctor and anyone would be a fool to say otherwise.

"I don't know Jack, he wouldn't want me anyway. He left me in Pete's World all those years ago, maybe he just didn't want." She said, her eyes broken and destroyed, filled with such sorrow from years of pain. She sipped the scotch he had poured, coughing slightly as it hit her, hearing the faintest of chuckles escaping Jack's lips. She never did understand how he drank this stuff. "Or maybe — maybe he didn't like what I was. I don't age, Jack. I should me in my thirties by now and everyone keeps complimenting me on how young I look."

"But you don't think —" Jack stopped himself before he could even finish his sentence. No, that wasn't fair, he couldn't watch Rose experience the same thing as himself. Seeing the pain of losing people, watching them grow old whilst you remain forever young.

"I don't know — and I definitely don't want to find out the hard way." Rose pointed out, if she was immortal, she would find out one day. But she wasn't quite willing to have someone kill her just to find out. Even if that had been a tempting thought at her darkest times.

They sat there in silence for a moment or two, Rose looking out to the Hub. It was completely different to anything she was used to. It was dark and gritty, hiding away in the undergrowth of Cardiff. She was so used to clean cut and shiny in-your-face Torchwood. Reminding everyone you were armed and ready. This made a nice change.

"Well — y'know I could always do with a friend." Jack pointed out with a slight smirk on his lips. "Maybe even if a second command if you're interested."

"Maybe…" Rose whispered, taking a deep breath. "So long as there's no saluting."


End file.
